


Map of the World

by SandrC



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Multi, figaydaine, i just love ayda okay?, its about the pining, the tender gays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:08:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22340821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SandrC/pseuds/SandrC
Summary: A Treatise on the Nature of Friendship (Or Perhaps Something More) by Ayda Aguefort
Relationships: Figueroth Faeth/Adaine Abernant/Ayda Aguefort
Comments: 8
Kudos: 110





	Map of the World

**Author's Note:**

> (Title from "Suddenly I See" by KT Turnstall)
> 
> Fig is Adaine's GF and Adaine is Ayda's GF, so by transitive property, that means that all three of them are dating each other. That's how math works when you're gay. Trust me, I'm gay.
> 
> But for real? I was thinking about how Ayda thinks and speaks and then my sleep-deprived brain went "okay but how about something like Cartographer but for figaydaine?" And this happened and it's great.
> 
> I'm fucking great at pining, y'all. I'm good.
> 
> Hope you like it.

Adaine Abernant has four hundred and thirty-five freckles on her face. Her eyelashes are gossamer and golden candy floss. Her eyes are a bright cerulean flecked with stygian blue and octarine, pupils thin elven slits. These are all truths that Ayda has observed in her friend in the short time she has watched her late into the night.

These feelings that curl in her gut, close against her breast, are _confusing_ yet she does _not_ hate them.

Adaine has skin the color of polished mahogany, yet the four hundred thirty-five freckles that form galaxies across Adaine's cheeks, nose, and forehead are a brighter, more burnished gold, not dissimilar to her hair. Maybe it's a high elf thing that causes their bodies to become homes to celestial systems, but instead of freckles similar to the ones that Ayda herself has from many years of living on Leviathan—darkness that deepens the skin tone her father gave her, shadows from the fire inside her body—Adaine has whole constellations of gold lighting up her face.

Ayda wants to chart those constellations on vellum with the same ink that Adaine uses to copy spells into her book, the same glittering gold as her freckles. She wants to name them for every emotion she experiences when looking at them. When looking at _Adaine_.

Adaine's eyelashes are soft-spun silk. _No_ , to call it _silk_ would be a disservice. Silk has _faults_. There is no fault in her eyelashes, long and thin that frame her eyes in a way that make each blink a soft wind that Ayda wants to ride like an eddie to glide in the blue of her eyes. And her hair is more of that, separated into three thick strands that are plaited together in a thick braid. It's like a tamed waterfall, wrapped in a thin ribbon and held back from a face that could launch a thousand ships.

Ayda likes running her fingers through Adaine's hair. When Adaine mentions wanting to take a dagger to her hair, just to see what going against her culture—going against _her father_ —feels like, Ayda feels a selfish pang rip through her. For the first time she considers her words and bites back on her immediate desire to request that, if she cut her hair in that way, could Ayda _keep_ her severed braid? _If only_ to have a keepsake that had physical ties to Adaine herself. But that would be _odd_ and _frowned upon_. So she hums softly in appeasement and says nothing instead.

Adaine has eyes the deepest blue. When she divines the future they glow bright stygian , a color _most_ mortal folks can't see or perceive properly. Next to her pupils—cat-like elven slits that expand when in the dark—are bright octarine flecks, _another_ color that most folks can't see. Stygian is called an afterimage and octarine is the color of magic. To ascribe them to Adaine is poetry, art, or something _far greater_.

Ayda wonders if Adaine gets lost in _her_ eyes in the same way Ayda finds herself wandering the labyrinthine depths of Adaine's gaze. If there is something there, in the warm tones of the fire inside her own gaze, that soothe the cool tempest inside of Adaine's soul. If there is a bird trapped within Adaine's ribs, similar to the one inside of Ayda's.

But Adaine is Ayda's first friend and she does not want this tenuous balance between disconcerting panic and this fluttering longing—an ember held in her hands—to be disturbed or disturbing to know of. She doesn't want this ember to go out, but she doesn't want it to glow _too_ bright either. She wants it to flourish, to give off heat and light, to become a beacon within herself. She wants this feeling to be her pole star. _Her center_ , but she doesn't want to carve it free of herself. She wants it to remain, selfishly, a part of her. She likes the way it makes her feel.

In a _similar_ way, Ayda realizes many things about Fig. After hours of looking at her, Ayda has learned the contours of Fig's face as well.

Fig's skin is redwood, _not_ crimson, but not the brown of her mother's kin. Her eyes are brilliant ruby set in ebony. Her horns are burnished ivory with claw marks at the base, memories of times past. Her smile is sincere and clever and wild, a quirk of her lip upwards. Every part of her is a gemstone, polished to perfection.

Ayda wonders if Fig sees something wild and natural in her visage. Ayda wonders if, where she sees the grounded nature of the earth in Fig, does Fig sees the bright and vibrant nature of fire or wind in Ayda?

Fig is solid and broad, her skin more elven than fiendish, _despite_ her many protests to the contrary. There are calluses on her fingertips from playing bass and small burn scars on the inside of the heel of her hand where she must have tested out her resistance to fire damage when she realized _what_ she was. She doesn't have as many freckles as Ayda or Adaine, but they retain the chestnut color of her heritage. She has a small scar under her eye and a mole behind her ear. She has only one dimple, on her left cheek.

Ayda marvels at how _warm_ Fig is. Both the tone of her skin and the actual, physical warmth. Even though Ayda herself has fire licking from her eyes and hair and wings at all times, Fig is far warmer and more inviting than _anything_ she's ever encountered. Ayda finds herself making excuses to come in contact with her, lingering touches and enveloping embraces given freely because Fig is as she _is_.

Fig has eyes like processed gemstones, polished cabachons of rich ruby set in garnished ebony nearly burnt into compressed jet. They sparkle and glitter like things of worth, lit up at every opportunity. Ayda has had time to memorize the way they spark when she is angry, the ripple of her sorrow, and— _more_ wonderfully—the glimmer of mischief and joy that seems to be her most default of states. Sometimes, in the late of night, when they should be sleeping but are not because Sleepover Etiquette, Ayda blearily wonders if there is any container actually good enough to keep safe those eyes, save the beautiful person they belong to.

Ayda only mentions rubies _once_. Fig immediately becomes tense and tells her about Gorthelax, her fiendish father, and the _several_ times he has been trapped in rubies. After that, Ayda searches for a comparable substitute but alexandrite shifts color too easily and bloodstone is spotty and, while carnelian _would_ work, there is a cheapness to its luster. So instead, Ayda does not speak of rubies and ebony and jet again, but keeps the thought private and relishes in the way it paints Fig as a treasure. _She treasures Fig._

Fig takes good care of her horns but there are reminders of times when she did _not_. At the base of the pillars of ivory that crown above her hair are light scars and gouges made with new claws and unknown strength. Sometimes, during sleepovers, Fig has Ayda rub lotion into her scalp, right at the base of her horns, and it is an _intimate_ moment that Ayda cannot express with _any_ of the words she has in her vast lexicon. Fig leans into her touch and Ayda has free reign to explore every divot that Fig's own blind, panicked hands had once gouged out. She has a chance to explore an unspoken part of Fig's past and it feels like a _gift_.

Ayda, in turn, guides Fig's hand to a space by her collarbone and shows her the places where her feathers don't come in correctly. She tells her, in hushed tones, of pulling them out by the fistful, until her blouse is soaked in blood. Of the panic and fear and pain she had been in. It seems to be a Sleepover Ritual, the sharing of trauma. Her admission makes Fig sigh and say her name softly and press one hand against Ayda's collarbone where the feathers had been pulled, the other cupping the side of her face in a gesture Ayda cannot place. The warmth of her touch lingers _long_ after her hands are removed.

Fig insists she wears other's faces more than her own but Ayda is inclined to disagree. She _rarely_ sees Fig as anyone else and, if she _does_ , it is easy to distinguish her from who she is pretending to be. It's in her smile, crooked upwards on the right, dimple on the left. It's in the wicked glee in her eyes and the slight flashing of her teeth. It's in the movement of her hands when she talks and the set of her body when she stands.

No matter _who_ Fig _looks_ like, Ayda can find her, because they are friends. And that is what friends do, _correct_? Look, learn, and observe each other's mannerisms and features until they can paint them using words and dots and numbers? Memorize every ideosyncrasy of each other until they contain a copy within themselves?

Or is this another one of those things that only _Ayda_ does? The weird things? The strange things?

Is this something that will _ruin_ their friendship? Is this something that will take away something she values once more?

If so, she would like it to stop.

(Even the warmth and the racing of her heart. If it means keeping Adaine and Fig as friends, let her feelings cease. She cannot _bear_ to lose them.)

(Instead, she will find solace in their faces and the memories therein. If it means she can keep them as friends, she will stow this growing ember in her heart and stopper words in her throat and simply watch and catalogue. She will become a cartographer of beauty, and they, her first master work.)


End file.
